Utilising Resources – We made rosemary salt!

During outdoor play experiences, many of the Creative Cubs were very curious about the gardening that Lisa was doing outside. Upon asking, we learned that Lisa was cutting sprigs of rosemary off the rosemary plant in order to make it healthy and to keep growing – just like when we get haircuts.

Instead of putting the rosemary into the compost bin, I thought we could possibly make some rosemary salt rub and sell it. So we did! We washed the sprigs of rosemary, took turns at tearing off the leaves, mixed the rosemary with some cooking salt, placed it in the oven to dry out and then blended the ingredients to make a rosemary salt rub to sell.

“First we measured out 3 cups of salt.” – Annika

“Then we got to pick off the green bits of the plant and put it in a purple cup.” – Elena

“Our hands had to be really clean.” – Florrie

“We mixed the salt and rosemary together.” – Arlie

“It went in the oven to cook. Ovens are hot aren’t they?” – Isla

“It was the plant Lisa cut from outside.” – Josie

“When it all mixed together in the blender it looked like a wave.” – Ava

“The blender was only a little bit noisy. I have one of them at home.” – Jake

“The blender chopped all the salt and rosemary together to make our salt!” - Amelia

During this experience, we had a discussion about what the rosemary salt could be used for and the idea of selling it:

“My Dad will buy the salt to put on his vegetables.” – Emily

“I think that we should sell it for 20 cents.” – Cooper

“We could put the money in a money box.” - Isla

“And then we could buy more plants from Bunnings with our money.” – Josie

This was a great experience for the children to be involved in as it extended their knowledge of processing and creating a product from a couple of simple ingredients. It also taught an element of sustainability, whereby we can create products by reusing materials instead of throwing in the bin, and developed a sense of pride, achievement and responsibility to be able to share and sell an item to make further purchases to make more products! Our goal for the near future is to continue to create a variety of items from produce sourced from our outdoors area and create a small market stall to sell it.

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